Measurement and Business Processes

I got back from a trip to one of my favourite cities ... Hyderabad. And, when one talks about Hyderabad, then can thoughts of Biryani be far behind? I am continuing ths from my previous post ... Where I was writing about Frank Jani'a post on Luis Suarez's post ... about measuring deltas, and deriving the efficacy of KM from there on.

Two things which I think we need to keep this in mind ...

1. The approach of measurement must be applied to specific business processes ... We cannot have a universal measurement (deltas of operating parameters over a period of time) for the efficacy of KM. The question that this brings up ... If you are starting a KM initiative in your organization, then what are the things you must consider to determine where the pilot should be done?

• is the process customer-facing
• are process participants geographically dispersed
• is the process cross-functional
• is this a line or support function
• is this a cost centre
• is this politically sensitive

These questions must be answered to determine whether a particular process in the organization is a suitable candidate for being the pilot.

2. Be prepared to have people dispute the fact that KM is responsible for process improvement. For example, in any typical organization, there are usually a number of initiatives which are running, for example, TQM, Six Sigma, Lean, FMS ... And, all of these are claimants to being the root cause for process improvement. What this means is that the process improvement pie could be politically sensitive, and might need to be treated carefully.